Today I worked in a real office. It was a little weird -- but good, it's nice to see a coworker or two now and then. We worked on concurrency and threading issues, and I learned some interesting things. Got it working by the end of the day, so cool!

"Actually it was my idea, I thought if we weren't going to an office location, it'd reduce jetlag on everyone..."

"You're kidding right? Iceland??"

I pause to look at a map. Well what do you know, Iceland is in a timezone that is between Gent and here. But still.... Iceland?? I checked, and it's not April Fools Day either. (Do they have May 8 Fools Day in Belgium?)

That could be a strange place to spend my birthday. I don't know how serious they are about this idea. So far it's just a suggestion. Nothing is the least bit confirmed yet, and I find the idea rather crazy myself -- but my boss was at least serious enough about the idea to mention it in an email.

More details to follow... we're supposed to talk about it tomorrow after the sprint review.

Hey - don't diss Reykjavík! It's a delightful and quaint city built over natural hot springs that keep it warmer than you'd expect. And if you're prepared, you can take the snowmobile tour of the glacier around the city. It's a fairly popular tourist destination for people from England, I kept intended to get there while I was overseas, but never quite managed to make it. (I just did some research. )

You should know that Iceland and Greenland are both, basically, the opposite of what the names suggest. You want to go to Iceland, but Greenland isn't all that green from what I hear.

If you're doing threading and concurrency, invest in a copy of "Java Concurrency In Practice", and read it. That book will illuminate many patterns and anti-patterns for you, and be a good point of reference to avoid huge issues. Just understanding how to use ReadWriteLocks and other synchronization primitives in Java 5 (and improved in Java 6) will help a lot.

Then again, I guess BERMUDA would also be roughly halfway, and the airfares are coming down steadily. And it's a very pretty place (so long as you don't go wandering out alone after dark) and has fantastic conference facilities... and beaches...

It'll be daylight most of the 24 hour cycle. It'll be warmer, you might not even need a sweater during the day. June will host the Icelandic Independence Day celebrations (I forget what day offhand).

And best of all, it's not just the famous hot springs that'll be open, but you'll also be able to visit the glacier formations in the center of the island (which are closed off during the winter because of dangerous travel conditions). There's also a special breed of horse bred only in the western fjords which is supposedly the best in the world for riding.